Project Eternity‘s all-star effort to revive the classic PC RPG

Developer talks about the freedom born of Kickstarter funding.

The "previous credits" list for the lead developers behind Obsidian Entertainment's Project Eternity reads like an excerpt from a list of nominees for "best classic PC RPG." Between them, Feargus Urquhart, Chris Avellone, Josh Sawyer, and Tim Cain have played major roles in developing franchises including Fallout, Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Arcanum, and Temple of Elemental Evil. So this isn't exactly a group of unknowns trying to get attention for some indie game startup.

That wide range of experience gives the team an intimate knowledge of what works and what doesn't work in a classically inspired PC RPG like Project Eternity, which is aiming to "pay homage to the great Infinity Engine games of years past" according to its Kickstarter page. Sawyer tells Ars Technica that means things like "tactical combat, exploration, [and] text-based story development" will feature heavily in Project Eternity, while eliminating some of the "translating rulesets, degenerate/annoying game mechanics, [and] clunky user interface" that plagued some of the older titles.

Still, even with the big-name talent and old-school sensibility driving the project, it was a bit shocking when the Kickstarter effort reached its funding goal of $1.1 million in just over 24 hours after its launch late last week (as of this writing the game has brought in $1.8 million with 25 days left to go). Even the developers themselves were a bit taken aback by the outpouring of support.

"I was stunned. There's no other way to put it," Sawyer told Ars Technica. "Before we went live, I figured we had a 50/50 chance of hitting our funding in a month. To hit it in a little over a day was something I never thought would happen."

Kickstarter wasn't the first choice for Sawyer and his colleagues, though. The team at Obsidian turned to the crowd-funding service only after finding it was "almost impossible to get funding through traditional methods for a game like this," as the project page puts it. Project Eternity's quick Kickstarter success could easily suggest those publishers were missing out on the big potential market for the kind of old-school RPG revival Project Eternity represents, but Sawyer thinks the concept is still just a little too niche to attract major publishing support.

"I think it's because many publishers are focused on high returns, not just percentage-wise, but dollar value overall," he said. "Publicly owned companies, especially, have to mind the bottom line because investors expect a high return on their investment. We're talking about something that is relatively low-risk compared to a 'triple A' multi-console title, but one that's also unlikely to generate hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue. In short, I think most publishers would consider this 'small fry' stuff."

Building their own world

Luckily for Obsidian, going through crowd-funding has allowed the company to make the game they want without trying to sell a publisher on the idea. That has given them the freedom to create a new fantasy world from the bottom up, basing their game around the idea of the soul and the implications of a world where those souls are routinely manipulated.

"If souls are a real thing and souls really get reincarnated and folks can really use the power of their soul to do superhuman things, that's kind of a big deal," Sawyer said. "When we start to bear down more on individual cultures and the characters in them, we should be able to easily create a bunch of ideas for conflicts because we have a solid basis for how the world works."

Not having to start from a well-established game franchise or outside license has been quite freeing, Sawyer says, but has also introduced its own difficulties into development.

"I think it's important to establish the reality in which everyone is operating. ... With an established world, you sort of don't have to worry about the idiosyncrasies or logical conflicts in them. Fans have probably already ignored them, accepted them, or mentally contorted around them. When you put something out for new eyes, there's a lot more pressure not to misstep."

Being free of publisher constraints and things like the ESRB ratings system will also allow the game to delve into more mature subject matter that fantasy worlds normally ignore, Sawyer said. Things like "slavery, hostile prejudice (racial, cultural, spiritual, sexual), drug use and trade, and so on" will all help flesh out the story and add a believable core to the highly fictional world, he said.

"I think the reason a lot of fantasy storylines feel hollow is because we don't treat the worlds like real places nor the characters in them like real people. I believe the existence of fantastic elements is an opportunity to ask, 'How would this change things?' When we see how the fantastic changes our reality, and how it does not, I think it can help us consider why we are the way we are."

In the great RPG debate between real-time action and turn-based battles, Obsidian has decided to split the baby for Eternity, going with a real-time system that allows for the option to pause the action to set party positioning and coordinate attacks. Sawyer said that a purely real-time system was out if the team wanted to keep the feeling of classic "Infinity Engine" games like Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment. But going with a purely turn-based system would have also felt off, he said.

"Because we also wanted to emphasize more open map exploration, with combat taking place in the same space as that exploration, pacing-wise it felt better to use real-time with pause than turn-based. In talking with Tim Cain (who's doing a lot of the system design), most of the problems we've faced with previous systems came from adapting turn-based tabletop systems in real-time with pause. We believe we can eliminate a lot of those problems by designing the system for real-time with pause from the start."

Promoted Comments

Besides the fact that they are GOOD? (Although everyone knows the panels are made by LG, but that not keeping on topic)

Be honest Kyle, how much have you given this guys? I, personally plan on backing this in the next few days (is not like they need my money so bad) for the basic pack even though I have never played any of the games they made (GASP)

I actually make it a point not to back Kickstarter projects that i have, will, or may be writing about, to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

151 posts | registered Jan 17, 2012

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl

77 Reader Comments

I'm picking up the same Magic/Technology dichotomy vibes that were present in Arcanum. No surprise, since that theme shows up in many RPGs. What's interesting, however, is that developers of Arcanum are creating Project Eternity. I'd be interested to hear how their experiences with that game will shape this new one.

The gaming industry is strange. When an all-star cast gives you the option to invest in a low-risk project, you jump at the chance. They'd rather making yet another CoD clone or WoW wannabe and bury it under so much DRM that you don't even want to bother, hoping that they will strike gold but more likely losing the investment.

Anyway. I backed this project the moment I heard about it, the first time I ever bothered with Kickstarter. Looking forward to it. Note that this is not only for Windows - the Mac version is already unlocked, and there is a Linux version waiting a ways up the tree ($2.2 million, I think).

Besides the fact that they are GOOD? (Although everyone knows the panels are made by LG, but that not keeping on topic)

Be honest Kyle, how much have you given this guys? I, personally plan on backing this in the next few days (is not like they need my money so bad) for the basic pack even though I have never played any of the games they made (GASP)

I always thought that in the event of winning the lottery, or something like that, I would track down the guys that made Fallout 1 and 2 and hand them a pile of money to make me a game...now I kinda did...and backed Wasteland 2 also...

So now I just have to win a pile of money at the lottery to fully fulfill my destiny...

I had to back this as well. While details are certainly still a bit lacking and I'm not sure about everything they've talked about, the thought they're giving to world building, and how it'll be different in scope, is both very interesting and exciting. Whether I up my pledge before the end will depend a lot on what they get up to in the remainder of their month, but it's well worth a bit of a flyer just for the world concept and the team to me. cRPGs are one of the many genres I've always loved that have gotten severely neglected in recent years.

Perhaps at least as importantly, this will be an important test case for a serious, established developer utilizing crowd sourcing, not merely some indies or even previous vets making a brand new team. Right now, in this first real generation of Kickstarter/Indiegogo and similar games funding amounts are somewhat low, but if it works out well it could tremendously alter the dynamics of the industry for the first time in many years.

mpat wrote:

Anyway. I backed this project the moment I heard about it, the first time I ever bothered with Kickstarter. Looking forward to it. Note that this is not only for Windows - the Mac version is already unlocked, and there is a Linux version waiting a ways up the tree ($2.2 million, I think).

They just announced they're yet another dev using Unity, and while that may cause a few concerns it should make it pretty straight forward to have fully cross platform. It's a could thing to mention though, at this point (particularly with such an abundance of choice) it's hard for me to really support anything that isn't cross platform.

Anyway. I backed this project the moment I heard about it, the first time I ever bothered with Kickstarter. Looking forward to it. Note that this is not only for Windows - the Mac version is already unlocked, and there is a Linux version waiting a ways up the tree ($2.2 million, I think).

Actually, they've changed that stretch goal. The linux version is coming. The stretch goal at 2M is replaced with something they'll announce on Monday. My guess is console or mobile devices.

Anyone finding Kickstarter to be getting just a tad annoying? Too often now I see some neat new thing on The Awesomer or other "cool stuff" blog, I click the link, and it's another freaking Kickstarter project. No! Want the glowly floating clock and the killer burger sauce now!

Anyway. I backed this project the moment I heard about it, the first time I ever bothered with Kickstarter. Looking forward to it. Note that this is not only for Windows - the Mac version is already unlocked, and there is a Linux version waiting a ways up the tree ($2.2 million, I think).

Actually, they've changed that stretch goal. The linux version is coming. The stretch goal at 2M is replaced with something they'll announce on Monday. My guess is console or mobile devices.

Seriously, how do you not pony up $10-$20 for this kind of thing? The bigger-than-Hollywood gaming gets, the more it borrows Hollywood's worst feature - risk aversion.

What I really want is a Kickstarter MMO project with sufficient scale to do it right. Kidnap Richard Garriott, the Shadowbane designers (not devs), the Darkfall devs (not designers), and the guy making War Z, and smoosh them all together with a $100M budget. I'd sell my house to fund that MMO.

Consoles make sense, assuming they can easily port (not sure if the Unity engine allows that but it is likely as I see that Unity is supporting the Wii U). Assuming the UI works reasonably well with a controller I would prefer to get a console version. But I will wait and see what is announced.

Consoles make sense, assuming they can easily port (not sure if the Unity engine allows that but it is likely as I see that Unity is supporting the Wii U). Assuming the UI works reasonably well with a controller I would prefer to get a console version. But I will wait and see what is announced.

Unity supports all current home consoles, but I don't see how you could play an Infinity-style game without a good pointer. Maybe with Wiimote/Move. Maybe.

Besides the fact that they are GOOD? (Although everyone knows the panels are made by LG, but that not keeping on topic)

Be honest Kyle, how much have you given this guys? I, personally plan on backing this in the next few days (is not like they need my money so bad) for the basic pack even though I have never played any of the games they made (GASP)

I actually make it a point not to back Kickstarter projects that i have, will, or may be writing about, to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Besides the fact that they are GOOD? (Although everyone knows the panels are made by LG, but that not keeping on topic)

Be honest Kyle, how much have you given this guys? I, personally plan on backing this in the next few days (is not like they need my money so bad) for the basic pack even though I have never played any of the games they made (GASP)

I actually make it a point not to back Kickstarter projects that i have, will, or may be writing about, to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Excellent answer Kyle... the difference between journalism and opinion is a fine line and I want to get my game stories/reviews from someone with no "dog in the show" so to speak.

Seriously, how do you not pony up $10-$20 for this kind of thing? The bigger-than-Hollywood gaming gets, the more it borrows Hollywood's worst feature - risk aversion.

Easy. These guys are well established professionals. They have stable jobs (in many of their cases) owning a successful, stable company. While the company itself may not be rolling in cash because of their history to do contract work it wouldn't surprise me if between them all they have the $1M-$2M it would take to produce this game.

Failing that there's little reason to believe that they could not bank their track record (possibly having to put personal assets up) and obtain a small business loan to produce this game. Once again we see successful, established, stable developers refusing to accept any personal risk in a game and whining about the big publishers "not picking the game up". Sorry, I'm not putting my money up until the game is released and proven to be good without receiving something more than a promise that I'll get a copy of the game once it's released.

Now if they were to offer a stake (however small) in the continuing success of the company in return for helping to make that success possible (a.la Gambitious) I might be willing to accept that risk. As it is now I treat this just like any other preorder: I don't.

Quote:

"We're talking about something that is relatively low-risk compared to a 'triple A' multi-console title, but one that's also unlikely to generate hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue. In short, I think most publishers would consider this 'small fry' stuff."

This is as silly a statement (however true it may be) as they come. The big publishers have a long and storied history of backing inexpensive licensed properties that sell like hotcakes to a small yet reliable crowd that holds their bottom line up while they produce the AAA titles.

If they made 10 $1M-$2M games over the course of the year that brought in $10M each (so a 10x costs revenue stream) they've just made $80M-$90M in profit. That is the buffer for one of their AAA games tanking right there.

Consoles make sense, assuming they can easily port (not sure if the Unity engine allows that but it is likely as I see that Unity is supporting the Wii U). Assuming the UI works reasonably well with a controller I would prefer to get a console version. But I will wait and see what is announced.

There is no way to do a game like this with a console controller without it being very, very awkward. It's not impossible, but you'll be pausing at least three times as much. Bioware tried it with Knights of the Old Republic and the result was that the tactics were greatly simplified (some would say dumbed down) relative to Baldur's Gate and even after that the game was still much more awkward on the XBox. I would be really surprised and really disappointed if they go the console route. Fortunately, it doesn't sound very likely: Chris Avellone said that he is "tired of designing content and interactions that caters to consoles and console controllers."

Seriously, how do you not pony up $10-$20 for this kind of thing? The bigger-than-Hollywood gaming gets, the more it borrows Hollywood's worst feature - risk aversion.

Easy. These guys are well established professionals. They have stable jobs (in many of their cases) owning a successful, stable company. While the company itself may not be rolling in cash because of their history to do contract work it wouldn't surprise me if between them all they have the $1M-$2M it would take to produce this game.

Failing that there's little reason to believe that they could not bank their track record (possibly having to put personal assets up) and obtain a small business loan to produce this game. Once again we see successful, established, stable developers refusing to accept any personal risk in a game and whining about the big publishers "not picking the game up". Sorry, I'm not putting my money up until the game is released and proven to be good without receiving something more than a promise that I'll get a copy of the game once it's released.

Now if they were to offer a stake (however small) in the continuing success of the company in return for helping to make that success possible (a.la Gambitious) I might be willing to accept that risk. As it is now I treat this just like any other preorder: I don't.

Quote:

"We're talking about something that is relatively low-risk compared to a 'triple A' multi-console title, but one that's also unlikely to generate hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue. In short, I think most publishers would consider this 'small fry' stuff."

This is as silly a statement (however true it may be) as they come. The big publishers have a long and storied history of backing inexpensive licensed properties that sell like hotcakes to a small yet reliable crowd that holds their bottom line up while they produce the AAA titles.

If they made 10 $1M-$2M games over the course of the year that brought in $10M each (so a 10x costs revenue stream) they've just made $80M-$90M in profit. That is the buffer for one of their AAA games tanking right there.

Some great points here. I'd go even further though and say that small ($1-2M) games are effectively dead or dying at retail. Sure, it's possible to get them in, but it is a very rough road especially on PC only. Most large publishers are going for megahits, and most mid-sized ones either died of stupidity after gorging on cheap credit or are being squeezed because retail likes to sell 10 products rather than 50. We indeed had a happy history of $1-3M deals in a single territory, but apparently retail in general doesn't get out of bed for that any more. I wonder how that will work for them long term...

Steam and digital give you somewhere to go and a chance (assuming Steam will take you) but that's somewhat more of an unknown - without the browsing-eyes-on that being on a retail shelf will give you.

I hope Eternity does really well and is a great game (although personally I hope they avoid the whole fantasy+steamishpunk vibe, I dislike it) but I am not sure they can put together something that will hold up for even $2M - but perhaps that is just their initial stake to attract more money to the table.

Huge company with 120 employees, beautifully designed office, begs for money to secure a risk free investment for themselves, reaping all profit from sales after that. Bravo Obsidian, now go eat your latte in your cafeteria.

You guys could have made this game if you wanted to and for the money already given here, you just didn't want to take responsibility for the risk of your investment or had enough faith in yourself to back your own self with your own money on the line which says a lot.

"Now if they were to offer a stake (however small) in the continuing success of the company in return for helping to make that success possible (a.la Gambitious) I might be willing to accept that risk."

Definitely needs to happen. These guys get employed for this long then afterwards have the potential to make 20 million plus on a game all on money that they got for free and had zero risk on and if they screw up, no repercussions. Obsidian is a massive company if they really wanted to make this game they would make it. all their bs about publishers not backing? Well guess what .....they aren't backing the game either so they are complete hypocrites, how is what they're doing any differently then EA or Activision running their own Kickstarter, bitching to "the man" about other publishers not funding these types of games? Obsidian is not funding this project and they have zero faith in this project to put their own money and risk on the line, therefore they are the publishers and exactly the same.

They try to present themselves as some type of robin hood, ooh I'll take your free money with the ability to make millions upon millions on top of that free money that we don't have to share with the original investors! True saints that. Get 2 million given to you, make potentially 10-20 million after that. Kickstarter is being used as an investment opportunity with none of the traditional and legally binding negatives for the people taking the money, with no laws or oversight and none of the profit has to be shared with the original people who invested into making it happen. All gravy, yeah not surprising why Obsidian is feigning that it needs help with this project.

Failing that there's little reason to believe that they could not bank their track record (possibly having to put personal assets up) and obtain a small business loan to produce this game.

I am sure that they could do that if they wanted to... but why would they want to? As far as business decisions go, that would be one of the stupidest ones out there. The Kickstarter proves that there are on the order of fifty thousand people willing to pre-order their game sight unseen and a few thousand willing to pay much more for bells and whistles. This adds up to roughly twice the money they originally asked for. Do you think there are small business loans out there that would give them this for 1.5 years at 0% interest?

Quote:

Now if they were to offer a stake (however small) in the continuing success of the company in return for helping to make that success possible (a.la Gambitious) I might be willing to accept that risk.

Any project of this nature necessarily stakes the company's name on it. If they don't deliver, then people will not give them anything the next time they ask (and probably won't buy their traditionally funded AAA games either). It just doesn't make any sense to stake anything further -- I would question their sanity if they did so.

Honestly this type of thing just shows how the traditional publishing method is totally broken. There's a whole slew of profitable games that publishers aren't interested in because they aren't good material to make sixteen sequels.

It's no wonder game sales have been going down for a couple of years now.

Besides the fact that they are GOOD? (Although everyone knows the panels are made by LG, but that not keeping on topic)

Be honest Kyle, how much have you given this guys? I, personally plan on backing this in the next few days (is not like they need my money so bad) for the basic pack even though I have never played any of the games they made (GASP)

I actually make it a point not to back Kickstarter projects that i have, will, or may be writing about, to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Excellent answer Kyle... the difference between journalism and opinion is a fine line and I want to get my game stories/reviews from someone with no "dog in the show" so to speak.

I don't think investing in a Kickstarter would have an effect on someones opinion of the game. That's like saying people who own a video game or someone who pre-ordered Borderlands 2 can't make a review on it becuase they invested in it.

I really don´t understand the argument against these projects, assuming the good faith of all parties involved, what´s the issue?

There are tons of examples of transactions and contracts pay for in advance, if they don´t deliver they won´t be able to do it again, no matter your particular contribution it´s probable it´s not a huge part of any person assets, more likely a tiny part...

If they go to a bank they have to pay interests, if they put their money in they may be putting their familiesat risk, for one video game? All in? it`s just a small piece of entertainment

So they ask for it and 50 to 100 thousand people put a super tiny fraction of their money in...in advance... big deal!

Honestly, if the game sucks, how is that different from any other game? and if it is not finished, so what? It was U$D 20 that gave me hope of a good game for a while, I say the risk more than me putting their names on the line

I feel a little odd about this kickstarter as honestly I'm not sure whether i will enjoy the finished product but yet I feel the need to back it. I am a keen RPG player but my favourite western RPGs are Neverwinter nights and Knights of the old republic rather than Baldurs gate and planscape torment (my Jrpgs of choice will always be final fantasy 6 and 9).

When Baldurs gate came out i was quite young (11) and though i was a keen PC gamer (i was gaming on an amstrad from the age of 2 and moved to commander keen and duke nukem 2d when i got my 286 aged 5) I didn't really play RPGs at the time (I was a Freespace/xwing vs tiefighter boy) and though I bought it when bg2 came out to critical acclaim I never really could get into it. This patterned repeated itself with all of the infinity engine games where I would pick each of them up cheap to finally play them only to be put off by the difficulty or (in the case of BG2 and IWD2) that i hadn't complete the first games yet. Only planescape torment escaped this fate and even then i lost a disk at some point and ended up with a stranded save 12-15 hours in (i shopped around for another copy but at the time 2003-4 i couldn't find one cheap and ended up just forgetting about it). So after looking at and backing this kick starter i looked in my draws to discover that i have owned a at least one copy of each and every single one of these games yet i have never enjoyed one enough to complete it. What to do? I decided that the only think I could do was get them out and play them and find out whether I had just wasted $20.

So I decided to start with Baldurs gate... Only i found that i only had the tales of the sword cost disk. So i did what any sane gamer does when he needs to get a new copy of an old game went to gog.... who were doing a special on D&D/infinity engine games which meant i ended up buying them all again (im a sucker for specials). So I ended up with my second maybe third possibly forth copies of these games which i have never completed and with one exception have no memory of enjoying. So it was with some trepidation i started my Baldurs gate adventure.

Now im not really very far into the game but it is still stupidly hard, the graphics are appalling, the animated cut scenes are horrendous (Freespace's opening cut-scenes still hold up so it was possible to do that kind of thing well in 1998), Imoen has quite possibly the worst selection of voice effects on earth and the game tells you nothing about how any of the bloody mechanics work. Yet this time I'm actually kind of enjoying it. The story is a bit clichéd and the oldly woldy fantasy voice-over is a bit much but it holds together reasonably well the characters have character and I finally understand the reason that I have a space hamster in mass effect. Maybe it won't last maybe when i struggle up to level 5 the game will lose its a appeal but at the moment I'm still enjoying the lack of hand holding the tricky battles and the way the game actually seems to actively trying to kill me but for the moment I am happy and who knows by the time eternity comes around I may actually have completed an infinity engine game.

In the great RPG debate between real-time action and turn-based battles, Obsidian has decided to split the baby for Eternity, going with a real-time system that allows for the option to pause the action to set party positioning and coordinate attacks.

I love this sort of rhetoric: "split the baby". I've played many real-time-with-pause games, and you know what? It's still just real-time to me. I almost never actually pause, in part because the game never makes me actually pause to do something important.

What this actually boils down to is this: it's a real-time battle system, but we're going to say "you can pause the game" to convince the people who don't like real-time battle systems to try our game.

Tridus wrote:

Honestly this type of thing just shows how the traditional publishing method is totally broken. There's a whole slew of profitable games that publishers aren't interested in because they aren't good material to make sixteen sequels.

It's no wonder game sales have been going down for a couple of years now.

Right, because the 1.8 million they've taken in so far would certainly be enough for the 10x as much in budget that would be required from a regular "AAA" production studio, and still make its money back. All this proves is that there are a fair number of people nostalgic for the games of yor, and willing and able to pay lots of money for them. It doesn't prove that they would be willing to pay nearly as much at retail.

They're paying for hope, not an actual, reviewable product. The developers are selling the hope that their product will scratch that nostalgia itch some people have.

Besides the fact that they are GOOD? (Although everyone knows the panels are made by LG, but that not keeping on topic)

Be honest Kyle, how much have you given this guys? I, personally plan on backing this in the next few days (is not like they need my money so bad) for the basic pack even though I have never played any of the games they made (GASP)

I actually make it a point not to back Kickstarter projects that i have, will, or may be writing about, to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Excellent answer Kyle... the difference between journalism and opinion is a fine line and I want to get my game stories/reviews from someone with no "dog in the show" so to speak.

I don't think investing in a Kickstarter would have an effect on someones opinion of the game. That's like saying people who own a video game or someone who pre-ordered Borderlands 2 can't make a review on it becuase they invested in it.

I definitely understand that argument, and don't judge my colleagues that do back kick starters they write about. To me, though, there's a difference between just buying (or pre-buying) a product and supporting an effort trying to get off the ground on kick starter. The first is just a pure money for goods transaction, while the second, to me, implies more personal support and "skin in the game" so to speak. It's a fine line.

They're paying for hope, not an actual, reviewable product. The developers are selling the hope that their product will scratch that nostalgia itch some people have.

Well, you're not wrong - whether or not Eternity is a successful (by most measures) won't be known for years. However, I might argue that this is like any project looking for an investor, in they're selling their team, resources, and track record.

Sure, there are no guarantees regarding the end product, but Obsidian's put enough in front of me to be comfortable investing in spite that of that risk.

Have backed it, I just hope they didn't ran out of time/money because they tried to do too many things, and then rushed the game out, causing pain to Yoda who sensed a world crying out in agony. This is more or less what happened to almost all of their games that I've played.

Seriously, they are creative geniuses, but they need a better project manager.